ProFantasy's Map-Making Archive

There is no getting around the fact that CC3+ contains a huge number of symbols, especially if you own all the add-ons, symbol sets and annuals, and even more if you have installed some of the available free community made sets, or maybe even imported images you have found yourself as symbols.

We have different ways in how we like to go looking for symbols, but one way some people like is having a kind of symbol book they can flip through. I still have memories of software in the last millennium that often came with such printed books in their box, for example a clipart book showing all the clipart available in the software. These days, such books are not quite as useful, because as computers evolved and became more powerful, they started offering on-screen preview and search features. Still, sometimes flipping through a book, either in physical form, or a pdf on your screen can be nice. If you have a multi-screen setup, you can even keep that book on one screen and work with CC3+ on another.

Now, CC3+ doesn’t come with any such books, neither printed nor digital, but it contains the tools that allow you to make one for yourself.

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You need towering structures rising from a jungle canopy or megalithic temples sitting on a lonely desert plateau? We’ve got you covered, so let’s climb the impressive step pyramids in this month’s free symbols of Mesoamerican Structures.

Note that the example maps included with this free content make use of the full Hand-drawn Fantasy style from the Cartographer’s Annual 2025. If you don’t have that Annual installed, you won’t see these correctly, but you can still use the symbols on other maps. The Cartographer’s Annual 2025 is available for purchase here.

To download the free content go to your registration page and on the Downloads tab, click the download button for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. The new symbols are listed there. All the content of from August 2025 to January 2026 is included in the one download. All previous content has been folded into the latest update for CC3+ (Update 28).

From lofty elven towers we turn our attention to the humble, earthy dwellings of the halfling people. Burrowing into the hillsides their bucolic settlements are neither fortified nor exceedingly well hidden, probably because they were originally protected by the strongholds of an ancient empire. This empire now lies in ruins and we must hope its descendants still watch over the halfings villages in secret.

Note that the example maps included with this free content make use of the full Hand-drawn Fantasy style from the Cartographer’s Annual 2025. If you don’t have that Annual installed, you won’t see these correctly, but you can still use the symbols on other maps. The Cartographer’s Annual 2025 is available for purchase here.

To download the free content go to your registration page and on the Downloads tab, click the download button for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. The new symbols are listed there. All the content of year (up to September 2025) is included in the one download.

You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.

The Cartographer’s Annual September issue is now available. Enjoy a beautiful selection of compass roses and scalebars by Gerri Broman (aka Shessar) to use in any of your maps. Learn how to make them available in various ways in any drawing style by reading the accompanying mapping guide.

The September issue is now available for all subscribers from their registration page. If you haven’t subscribed to the Annual 2025 yet, you can do so here.

As Mike Schley is busy working on another project we can’t quite talk about yet, we are pivoting the free monthly symbols from the Dungeons of Schley style to the Hand-drawn Fantasy style introduced with the Cartographer’s Annual 2025. This month we add elven stuctures to the style, from large cities to towers, hidden strongholds and holy sites.

Note that the example maps included with this free content make use of the full Hand-drawn Fantasy style from the Cartographer’s Annual 2025. If you don’t have that Annual installed, you won’t see these correctly, but you can still use the symbols on other maps. The Cartographer’s Annual 2025 is available for purchase here.

To download the free content go to your registration page and on the Downloads tab, click the download button for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. The new symbols are listed there. All the content of year (up to August 2025) is included in the one download.

You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.

We’re back on schedule with the March monthly symbols! We are climbing up towards the light this month, instead of descending of the dark of the dungeon. Height differences are always hard to depict on a top down map, so Mike has produced symbols that help with that. The “Outdoor Heights” symbol pack contains cliff edges, slopes, and a variety of helpful tools to navigate them, from rope ladders to climbing poles.

Note that the example maps included with this free content make use of Symbol Set 4 to showcase the symbols in proper surroundings. If you don’t have SS4 installed, you won’t see these correctly, but you can still use the symbols on other maps. Symbol Set 4 – Dungeons of Schley is available for purchase here.

To download the free content go to your registration page and on the Downloads tab, click the download button for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. Mike’s new symbols are listed there. All the content of year is included in the one download.

You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.

Symbols in CC3+ comes with a lot of advanced functionality beyond simply placing down an icon in your map. One of of the entries on that list is symbol attributes.

Symbol attributes are text entities that are embedded into the symbol, but allow the user to set their value when placing the symbol. This allows a single symbol to have a kind of dynamic content. this can be used for many purposes; one of the more common one is for scale bars. By default, most scale bars in CC3+ are designed to be 100 miles or feet long. But instead of hard-coding the number 100 in the symbol, the scale bars use attributes, so if you need a shorter scale bar, you can just place it at 0.5 scale and type 50 as the attribute value. This means you only need to define a single symbol, and it can be used for multiple scales, instead of having a small fixed set with common values. The text you enter becomes part of the symbol, so it will follow along if you move the symbol around.

Other uses for attributes are placeable signs with user-defined text, modern military unit counters with identification text, and much more.

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Do you think cities, towns and villages are not enough to adequately depict the glory and splendour of an alien hive civilization? So do we! So Mike has drawn more structures from temples and workshops to brood halls and ruins and we’ve done a second set of hive settlements from them. We hope you enjoy them.

To download the latest free symbols go to your registration page and on the Downloads tab, click the download button for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. Mike’s new symbols are the last link in the list. All the content of the current year (January to October 2024 so far) is included in the one download.

You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.

Do strange and alien civilizations exist in the lands you are mapping? Do hives of insectoid creatures dot the wasteland of your world? Then use this month’s free symbols by Mike Schley to put them on the map!

To download the latest free symbols go to your registration page and on the Downloads tab, click the download button for Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. Mike’s new symbols are the last link in the list. All the content of the current year (January to October 2024 so far) is included in the one download.

You can always check the available monthly content on our dedicated page.

Previously in this series, we have developed a set of tiles which we can use to build a space station of any size. Sure, more variation would have been nice, but the four tiles we made are actually enough for any size space station, as long as we accept that it has to be shaped like a rectangle. The previous articles should have given you the information needed to make more tiles though, such as making an inner corner to complete the set and allow for a more complex shape.

Last time, we did look at how to export and print the tiles. Printed tiles could be assembled on the fly at the gaming table, while the exported images are great for combining in just about any program, like an image editor, a Virtual TableTop, or even CC3+ itself. And this is what we will be focusing on in this article, how to use the tiles in CC3+. There are two options here, either we can import the images we exported as symbols and use those, or, instead of exporting our tiles in the first place, we could create symbols directly from the tiles themselves. This latter option gives us some interesting options we will look at in the next installment, but today, we’ll look at creating bitmap symbols.

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